You can also see Alistair from Eventus chatting about a UK Mountain First Aid Course night exercise right here too!

Recent training for some excellent new instructors has created debate in the office; what makes a great instructor great and are they born or taught?

It has been said that an instructor offers fifty percent knowledge and fifty percent delivery and yet this doesn’t seem to quite explain it. More and more as we have taught and been taught over the years we’ve come to recognise that some trainers just have that special something that makes you want to hear what they’ve got to say.

Sadly there seems to be real misunderstanding here. It seems that many people who have triumphed (often through hard work) over that number one fear; public speaking,  believe  that because they can stand up in front of a group that they should. So armed with some lesson plans and a bit of training they throw themselves into the industry as instructors –“ I have the confidence to speak, so you should hear what I say.” Unfortunately they don’t all realise that having a voice is just the beginning.

Undeniably people can be taught to instruct and present better; improved communication techniques, body language and lesson plans can all make a poor trainer a better trainer but can it truly make them great?

Some time ago we taught a P.G.C.E. group close to the end of their teacher training and found them to be a mostly giggly, immature and poorly attentive bunch. The P.G.C.E. is a decent course so one assumes that they must have learned something about teaching along the way but we can’t help wonder how they will manage when left alone to manage the education of large groups of children.

Just take a look online at some of the people who consider themselves so capable that they sell their services as a means of improving your own difficulties with instructional technique as train the trainers. Watch the man who shouts and shrieks at his audience while reading out the words he is writing on his board because he knows that tone and levels are important. Watch the women with elaborate hand gestures that have no relation to their voice as they stand in front of the same powerpoint slide for twenty minutes; or the hundreds of professional trainers like them who choose to display such clips as an example of their skill.

I’m sure that both those trainers could discuss Flemings VARK model of learning or Heron’s principles of instruction to the end of days but painfully their footage demonstrates that a great instructor needs more in their arsenal than the fashionable labels of educational psychology.

Compare these to the last time you were told a story or joke by someone who kept you on the edge of your seat, so enthralled that you savour every twist and turn before an unbearable pause and a punch line delivered so effortlessly that it knocks you sideways. Such storytellers might think that Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning is a local florist school but none the less they can craft their words and actions into something of artistic wonder that sucks you in and stays with you for a very long time.

Of course there is more to instructing than simply telling a story. You have to ensure passage of information, skill retention and motivation. Still, I can’t help thinking that many instructors however well-taught are missing that same instinctive confidence and liberating delivery.

Sure, a lesson from a well-taught, well-practiced instructor can be an effective thing but isn’t getting the same information from a story-teller a bit more magical?

I wonder if we should make more effort to encourage people who have such gifts and passions into this industry rather than simply teach the basics to anyone who asks and then tell them to instruct. Perhaps life would be better if we had more magic in the classroom?